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| Type | Public |
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| Established | 1954 |
| Founder | Charles Sadron |
| Director | Christian Gauthier |
| Location | , 48°36′21″N7°42′43″E / 48.6058°N 7.7120°E |
| Affiliations | CNRS - University of Strasbourg (UPR22) |
| Website | www |
Institut Charles Sadron is a research center of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (National Centre of Scientific Research), associated with the University of Strasbourg, which was created in 1954 to answer the demand for fundamental research in the emerging field of polymer science.
In 1947, through the efforts of Charles Sadron (1902–1993), the Centre national de la recherche scientifique founded the Centre d'Etude de Physique Macromoléculaire (Centre for Study of Macromolecular Physics). This multidisciplinary centre including physicists, chemists and biologists, was dedicated to research in the field of macromolecular science.
In 1954, the Centre de Recherche sur les Macromolécules (Centre for Macromolecular research) became the first Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique-owned research unit to be installed in a provincial city. [1] Charles Sadron was appointed director until he left for Orléans in 1967 to create a new laboratory, the Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire. His successor, Professor Henri Benoît took the leadership of the Centre de Recherche sur les Macromolécules until 1978.
During the 1970s, after the departure of the biologists, the Centre de Recherche sur les Macromolécules developed two major topics of research: the study of the solid state of macromolecules and the study of their structure and behavior in solution. The latter grew quite rapidly thanks to both the development of light and neutron scattering and the strong collaboration established with Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (collège de France), Paris) and the Léon Brillouin Laboratory at CEN-Saclay. [2]
In 1985, through the integration of the research laboratories of Ecole d'Application des Hauts Polymères (School for Application of High Polymers), the Centre de Recherche sur les Macromolécules was renamed Institut Charles Sadron. [3] The objective was to bring fundamental and applied research closer.
In 2008, the institute moved to a new building located at the Cronenbourg Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique campus with the aim to promote enhanced collaborations with the Pôle Matériaux Alsace (Materials Science Centre).
The directors have been C. Sadron, H. Benoit, C. Wippler, G. Weill, G. Maret, J.C Wittmann, J.-F. Legrand, J.-M. Guenet, with C. Gauthier being the current director.
The Institut Charles Sadron is a multidisciplinary laboratory performing research at the interface of chemistry, physics and material sciences. In 2011, it was composed of about:
The research activity covers the fields of polymer chemistry, supramolecular engineering, physico-chemistry of materials and soft matter physics. The three main research axes concern: polyelectrolytes, polymers at the interfaces and self-assembly systems.
Polyelectrolytes are water-soluble natural or synthetic ionic polymers used in pharmacology, biology, cosmetics etc. In many of the applications, polyelectrolytes are in contact with compounds possessing opposite charges and the complexity introduced in this mixture requires theoretical and experimental studies on model-compounds whatever the system used: polyelectrolyte complexes in solution or alternated multilayer of polyanions and polycations layer by layer). [4]
In many situations of surface chemistry or physics, grafted polymer chains are adsorbed or confined in thin films. Conformations and dynamics of macromolecules on surfaces are different from those observed in solution. This results in differences in physico-chemical and mechanical or structuration properties, which are still not perfectly understood and necessitate theoretical investigations and the use of simulation programs to complete the experimental observations.
They are due to molecular organization phenomena which result from the association and the reversible and spontaneous structuration of molecular or macromolecular species into entities with higher complexity. Nature is full of examples of complex systems governed by supramolecular chemistry principles. Despite their complexity, biological systems are an important source of inspiration for the development of new self-assembly systems. This approach needs converging efforts in organic synthesis and physico-chemistry in order to understand the thermodynamic and kinetic phenomena which allow self-assembly and self-organization of functional systems.
A fourth transverse axe is dedicated to theoretical studies and simulation of polymers.
Some members of the Institut Charles Sadron have been awarded several national or international prizes for their research.
Dr. Bernard Lotz received the 1973 prize of the French polymer group for his pioneering work on the structure of silk (shared with Dr. A. Brack from Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire Orléans).
Professor Henri Benoît and doctor André Kovacs were awarded the Physics Polymer Prize from the American Physical Society in 1978 and 1986, respectively. [5]
In 1990, doctor Jean-Michel Guenet was awarded the Dillon medal also from the American Physical Society for his research on polymer chains conformation in semi-crystalline polymers and his contribution to the understanding of the nature of gel state. [6]
Professor Gero Decher was awarded the Emilia Valori Prize 2009 [7] attributed by the French Sciences Academie (Académie des sciences) and the prize Rhodia 2010, [8] for his research on the layer by layer technique. He also received the 1999 prize of the French polymer group for his work on the layer-by-layer deposition technique.
Doctor Martin Brinkmann was awarded the GFP/SFP 2010 prize by the French Polymer Society (in French) GFP (a joint award by the Groupe Français d'études et d'applications des Polymères and the French Physical Society ((in French) SFP, Société Française de Physique) for his work on conjugated polymers.
Professor Nicolas Giuseppone (2010), Doctor Jean-François Lutz (2010) and Doctor Wiebke Drenckhan (2012) were laureates of the European Research Council Starting Grant, [9] attributed by the European Research Council.
Since 2012, the "Charles Sadron Institute Conference Series" were created at the initiative of Jean-Michel Guenet, director of the institute. The first conference supported by the European Research Council took place in November 2012 at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. 26 invited lectures were presented by a chemistry Nobel Prize laureate (Prof. Jean-Marie Lehn) and European Research Council laureates (Starting and Advanced grants).
The French National Centre for Scientific Research is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe.
Jean Baptiste Perrin was a French physicist who, in his studies of the Brownian motion of minute particles suspended in liquids, verified Albert Einstein's explanation of this phenomenon and thereby confirmed the atomic nature of matter. For this achievement he was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1926.
Polyelectrolytes are polymers whose repeating units bear an electrolyte group. Polycations and polyanions are polyelectrolytes. These groups dissociate in aqueous solutions (water), making the polymers charged. Polyelectrolyte properties are thus similar to both electrolytes (salts) and polymers and are sometimes called polysalts. Like salts, their solutions are electrically conductive. Like polymers, their solutions are often viscous. Charged molecular chains, commonly present in soft matter systems, play a fundamental role in determining structure, stability and the interactions of various molecular assemblies. Theoretical approaches to describe their statistical properties differ profoundly from those of their electrically neutral counterparts, while technological and industrial fields exploit their unique properties. Many biological molecules are polyelectrolytes. For instance, polypeptides, glycosaminoglycans, and DNA are polyelectrolytes. Both natural and synthetic polyelectrolytes are used in a variety of industries.
Polymer science or macromolecular science is a subfield of materials science concerned with polymers, primarily synthetic polymers such as plastics and elastomers. The field of polymer science includes researchers in multiple disciplines including chemistry, physics, and engineering.
Krzysztof "Kris" Matyjaszewski is a Polish-American chemist. He is the J.C. Warner Professor of the Natural Sciences at the Carnegie Mellon University Matyjaszewski is best known for the discovery of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a novel method of polymer synthesis that has revolutionized the way macromolecules are made.
Layer-by-layer (LbL) deposition is a thin film fabrication technique. The films are formed by depositing alternating layers of oppositely charged materials with wash steps in between. This can be accomplished by using various techniques such as immersion, spin, spray, electromagnetism, or fluidics.
Rudolf Podgornik is a physicist. His fields of research are: physics of soft matter, physics of Coulomb fluids, physics of macromolecular interactions, Lifshitz theory of Casimir - van der Waals dispersion interaction, Casimir effect, physics of membranes, polymers and polyelectrolytes and physics of DNA, RNA and viruses.
Ludwik Leibler, born in 1952 is a Polish-born French physicist. He is Professor of École supérieure de physique et de chimie industrielles de la ville de Paris and member of the French Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering.
The A.N. Nesmeyanov Institute of Organoelement Compounds of Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in 1954 by a prominent scientist, the President of the USSR Academy of Sciences, academician A. N. Nesmeyanov (1899–1980), who was a "father" of the modern chemistry of organoelement and organometallic compounds. He headed the Institute for 26 years. Major directions of research of the Institute are the following: Laboratories of Organoelement Profile, Laboratories of Polymer Profile, and Laboratories of Physical Profile.
Charles Louis Sadron, was a French physicist who specialized in the study of biological macromolecules.
The Hubert Curien Pluridisciplinary Institute is a joint research unit of the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and of the University of Strasbourg. It was formed by the voluntary association of three research laboratories at the University of Strasbourg.
Matthew V. Tirrell is an American chemical engineer. In 2011 he became the founding Pritzker Director and dean of the Institute for Molecular Engineering (IME) at the University of Chicago, in addition to serving as senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory. Tirrell's research specializes in the manipulation and measurement of polymer surface properties, polyelectrolyte complexation, and biomedical nanoparticles.
Gero Decher is a German chemist and Distinguished Professor at the Faculty of Chemistry of University of Strasbourg. He is best known for his seminal role in the development of polyelectrolyte multilayers, which is today known as “layer-by-layer (LbL) assembly”, a simple yet powerful nanofabrication method that has enabled the development of entirely new technologies, such as biocompatible coatings on medical devices, ultrastrong nanocomposites, neural interfaces, charge-storage devices, gas separation, fire retardants, and gene delivery platforms. According to CNRS International Magazine, Decher's work has “sparked a small revolution in materials science”. Layer-by-layer assembly is now an established part of the nanobiotechnology curriculum.
Anne Hiltner was an American polymer scientist who founded the Center for Applied Polymer Research (CAPRI) and was later instrumental in the founding of the Center for Layer Polymeric Systems (CLiPS), a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center at Case Western Reserve University. She served as Director of the Center for Layered Polymeric Systems from its founding in 2006 until her death in 2010.
Wiebke Drenckhan, born 6 April 1977 in Bad Belzig, is a German physicist. She is a CNRS research director at the Institut Charles Sadron, where she investigates the physics and physical chemistry of liquid and solid foams and emulsions. She also works as illustrator for scientific journals and popular science books and she collaborates regularly with artists and designers.
Lenka Zdeborová is a Czech physicist and computer scientist who applies methods from statistical physics to machine learning and constraint satisfaction problems. She is a professor of physics and computer science and communication systems at EPFL.
The Strasbourg Institute of Material Physics and Chemistry is a joint research unit between the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Strasbourg. It was founded in 1987 and is located in the district of Cronenbourg in Strasbourg, France.
Interpolymer complexes (IPC) are the products of non-covalent interactions between complementary unlike macromolecules in solutions. There are foiur types of these complexes:
The French group for the study of polymers and their application, also called more simply French polymer group (GFP) is a French nonprofit organization and learned society, which aims to promote polymer chemistry, physics, and material science in French industry and institutes of higher learning.
Hans-Wolfgang Spiess, also Hans Wolfgang Spiess, is a German polymer chemist who specializes in the Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy of macromolecules. He was director of the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz until his retirement in 2012.
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